All History Ignores Him

by Kersey Graves (1875)

Kersey Graves (1813-1883)

The fact that no history, sacred or profane,—that not one of the three hundred
histories of that age,—makes the slightest allusion to Christ, or any of the
miraculous incidents ingrafted into his life, certainly proves, with a cogency that no
logic can overthrow, no sophistry can contradict, and no honest skepticism can resist,
that there never was such a miraculously endowed being as his many orthodox disciples
claim him to have been. The fact that Christ finds no place in the history of the era in
which he lived,—that not one event of his life is recorded by anybody but his own
interested and prejudiced biographers,—settles the conclusion, beyond cavil or
criticism, that the godlike achievements ascribed to him are naught but fable or fiction.
It not only proves he was not miraculously endowed, but proves he was not even naturally
endowed to such an extraordinary degree as to make him an object of general attention. It
would be a historical anomaly without a precedent, that Christ should have performed any
of the extraordinary acts attributed to him in the Gospels, and no Roman or Grecian
historian, and neither Philo nor Josephus, both writing in that age, and both living
almost on the spot where they are said to have been witnessed, and both recording
minutely all the religious events of that age and country, make the slightest mention of
one of them, nor their reputed authors. Such a historical fact banishes the last shadow
of faith in their reality.

It is true a few lines are found in one of Josephus's large works alluding to Christ.
But it is so manifestly a forgery, that we believe all modern critics of any note, even
of the orthodox school, reject it as a base interpolation. Even Dr. Lardner, one of the
ablest defenders of the Christian faith that ever wielded a pen in its support, and who
has written ten large volumes to bolster it up, assigns nine cogent reasons (which we
would insert here if we had space) for the conclusion that Josephus could not have penned
those few lines found in his "Jewish Antiquities" referring to Christ. No Jew could
possibly use such language. It would be a glaring absurdity to suppose a leading Jew
could call Jesus "The Christ," when the whole Jewish nation have ever contested the claim
with the sternest logic, and fought it to the bitter end. "It ought, therefore" (says Dr.
Lardner, for the nine reasons which he assigns), "to be forever discarded from any place
among the evidences of Christianity." (Life of Lardner by Dr. Kippis, p. 23.)

As the passage is not found in any edition of Josephus prior to the era of Eusebius,
the suspicion has fastened upon that Christian writer as being its author, who argued
that falsehood might be used as a medicine for the benefit of the churches. (See his
Eccles. Hist.) Origen, who lived before Eusebius, admitted Josephus makes no allusion to
Christ. Of course the passage was not, then, in Josephus. One or two other similar
passages have been found, in other authors of that era, which it is not necessary to
notice here, as they are rejected by Christian writers. It must be conceded, therefore,
that the numerous histories covering the epoch of the birth of Christ chronicle none of
the astounding feats incorporated in his Gospel biographies as signalizing his earthly
career, and make no mention of the reputed hero of these achievements, either by name or
character. The conclusion is thus irresistibly forced upon us, not only that he was not a
miracle-worker, but that he must have led rather an obscure life, entirely incompatible
with his being a God or a Messiah, who came "to draw all men unto him." And it should
also be noted here that none of Christ's famous biographers, Matthew, Mark, Luke, or
John, are honored with a notice in history till one hundred and ninety years after the
birth of Christ. [All four Gospels were written around 170AD -D.D.].
And then the notice was by a Christian writer (Ireneus).

"We look in vain," says a writer, "for any contemporary notice of the Gospels, or
Christ the subject of the Gospels, outside of the New Testament. So little was this 'king
of the Jews' known, that the Romans were compelled to pay one of his apostles to turn
traitor and act as guide before they could find him. It is impossible to observe this
negative testimony of all history against Christ and his miracles, and not be struck with
amazement, and seized with the conviction that he was not a God, and not a very
extraordinary man." Who can believe that a God, from off the throne of heaven, could make
his appearance on earth, and while performing the most astounding miracles ever recorded
in any history, or that ever excited the credulity of any people, and be finally publicly
crucified in the vicinity of a great city, and yet all the histories written in those
times, both sacred and profane, pass over with entire silence the slightest notice of any
of these extraordinary events. Impossible—most self-evidently impossible!!
And when we find that this omission was so absolute that no record was made of the day or
year of his birth by any person in the era in which he lived, and that they were finally
forgotten, and hence that there are, as a writer informs us, no less than one hundred and
thirty-three different opinions about the matter, the question assumes a still more
serious aspect. From the logical potency of these facts we are driven to the conclusion
that Christ received but little attention outside of the circle of his own credulous and
interested followers, and consequently stands on a level with Chrishna of India, Mithra
of Persia, Osiris of Egypt, and other demigods of antiquity, all whose miraculous legends
were ingrafted in their histories long after their death.